The World Health Organization has dispatched rare drug to HCMC to treat patients critically ill with botulism after eating pork bologna and fermented food, but one died shortly after it arrived.
Sent from Switzerland, six vials of botulism antitoxin heptavalent (BAT) arrived on Wednesday to be administered to the three men, aged 18, 26 and 45, the Ministry of Health said.
Two of them are under treatment at Cho Ray Hospital and the other at Gia Dinh Hospital.
But the 45-year-old patient at Gia Dinh died on Wednesday night before he was injected with the drug, the hospital announced Thursday morning.
Produced by Emergent BioSolutions Canada Inc., the drug effectively neutralizes all known botulinum nerve toxin serotypes. Without it, botulism patients could be paralyzed permanently.
Between May 13 and 20 six people in Thu Duc City suffered from botulinum poisoning, five after eating pork bologna sold by street vendors and one due to eating a type of fermented food.
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